Il Kweon Moon

Three-shell-based lens barrel for the effective athermalization of an IR optical system

We have developed a new IR optical system that consists of three mirrors and four lenses, and that operates in the temperature range 8°C-32°C. This temperature range can induce thermoelastic deformation in the lenses and their mounting subassembly, leading to a large defocus error associated with the displacement of the lenses inside the barrel. We suggest using a new three-shell-based athermalization structure composed of two materials with different coefficients of thermal expansion (Invar and aluminum). A finite element analysis and the experiment data were used to confirm that this new athermalization barrel had a defocus error sensitivity of 11.6 nm/°C; this is an improvement on the widely used conventional single-shell titanium barrel model, which has a defocus error sensitivity of 29.8 nm/°C. This paper provides the technical details of the new athermalization design, and its computational and experimental performance results.

Accuracy Assessment for Measuring Surface Figures of Large Aspheric Mirrors

At the time that the Keck-I 10m telescope was constructed in 1993, the era of Very Large Telescopes (VLTs) was opened. Now thirteen VLTs are in operation, and the largest of the monolithic mirrors is 8.4 m in diameter. Such monolithic mirrors are mostly aspheric and require high accuracies on the surface figures, reaching up to the diffraction limit. At present, next generation telescopes, Giant telescopes, are being developed. One is the GMT (Giant Magellan Telescope) whose size is 25.4 m in diameter. The primary mirror consists of seven segments figuring elliptical shapes on the surface. The surrounding six segments are off-axis and the edges are steep, as the fast focal ratio is adopted. It means that testing of the mirrors is a challenging task. In this paper, testing methods for the GMT primary mirror are reviewed, and accuracy of measuring devices is assessed. Results and discussions follow.

Adjustable bipod flexures for mounting mirrors in a space telescope

A new mirror mounting technique applicable to the primary mirror in a space telescope is presented. This mounting technique replaces conventional bipod flexures with flexures having mechanical shims so that adjustments can be made to counter the effects of gravitational distortion of the mirror surface while being tested in the horizontal position. Astigmatic aberration due to the gravitational changes is effectively reduced by adjusting the shim thickness, and the relation between the astigmatism and the shim thickness is investigated. We tested the mirror interferometrically at the center of curvature using a null lens. Then we repeated the test after rotating the mirror about its optical axis by 180° in the horizontal setup, and searched for the minimum system error. With the proposed flexure mount, the gravitational stress at the adhesive coupling between the mirror and the mount is reduced by half that of a conventional bipod flexure for better mechanical safety under launch loads. Analytical results using finite element methods are compared with experimental results from the optical interferometer. Vibration tests verified the mechanical safety and optical stability, and qualified their use in space applications.

Detection System for Sub-micrometer Defects of a Photo-mask Using On-axis Interference between Reflected and Scattered Lights

In the process of lithography using ultra violet light sources for semiconductor devices, most of defects are made by sub-micrometer pollutants generated at photochemical reactions. We proposed and developed a novel vibration-insensitive on-axis interferometer with a sub-micrometer lateral resolution by using the interference between two beams: one scattered from defects and the other reflected from a reference area without defects. The proposed system was successfully demonstrated to detect a small Al defect of 0.5 μm diameter within the inspection time of less than 30 minutes over the area of the photo-mask which is 6 inch by 6 inch square.

1-m lightweight mirror design using genetic algorithm

We present our design procedure for a 1-m lightweight mirror in a space optical system. The glass mirror has three monolithic bosses at the rim and is assembled with metallic bipod flexures. Their dimensional parameters cannot be optimized independently with each other in a classical design process, where optical performance is greatly affected by the flexure mount configuration. With our method, the design problem is separated into two independent problems; mirror design and flexure design. Resources required to achieve design goals are reduced by almost one order of magnitude in time. Also the mirror and flexure mount designs can be parallel-processed without interfering each other. In this paper, we present the mirror design process and its results optimized with multi-objective genetic algorithm (GA).

Large Aspheric Optics and Its Applications

A large aspheric mirror is a key component for large astronomical telescopes and high resolution satellite cameras. Since it is large and has an aspheric form, it is much more difficult to fabricate it compared to the similar size of spherical mirror. Especially, the opto-mechanical design and analysis is critical to reduce the deformation of mirror surface due to the external forces such as gravity or temperature change, as the mirror size is larger and lightweighting ratio is increased. The design requirements for the mirror are different depending on the particular ground and space applications because the environmental conditions are changed. In this paper, we explain the opto-mechanical design and analysis for ground and space applications that are among the most difficult to achieve among several technologies related to development of the large aspheric mirror.

Design and development of a wide field telescope

A prototype of large wide field telescope is a Cassegrain telescope which covers 2° field of view with two hyperbolic mirrors, a 0.5 m primary mirror and a 0.2 m secondary mirror with multiple correction lenses. To fulfill the optical and mechanical performance requirements in design and development phase extensive finite element analyses using NX NASTRAN and optical analyses with CODE V and PCFRINGE have been conducted for the structure of optical system. Analyses include static deformation (gravity and thermal), frequency, dynamic response analysis, and optical performance evaluations for minimum optical deformation. Image motion is also calculated based on line of sight sensitivity equations integrated in finite element models. A parametric process was performed for the design optimization to produce highest fundamental frequency for a given weight, as well as to deal with the normal concerns about global performance.